1.   And that means nickel and dime defenses and Jets players named Anthony Prior, Pat Terrell, Otis Smith and Victor Green being employed as extra defensive backs.

2.   At the trading deadline last season, the Sharks supposedly were willing to deal center Jeff Friesen and a player to be named for Roenick.

3.   Basketball, he knows, is like religion here, and not because the Wildcats have players named Mohammad and Pope.

4.   Best players named Smith, Jones.

5.   A player named Popeye made a layup just before the buzzer to force the third OT.

6.   A player named Zelijko tossed down some cards with disgust.

7.   A minor Parisian player named Quasimodo got on my nerves, kept asking me to write about his hunchbackhand.

8.   A retired NFL player named Joe Walton, a tight end himself only a few years earlier with the Giants, was then scouting for his old team.

9.   Each stated bluntly that the team needed to improve its efforts and quickly, however, neither player named a specific teammate.

10.   He consoled himself by noting that there was only one Red Sox player named to the team.